page_title: Birmingham Snow Hill railway station
section_title: Closure
hierarchical_section_title: Birmingham Snow Hill railway station / History / Closure
caption_attribution_description: English: An original part of the almost completely demolished Snow Hill Station, Livery Street, Birmiingham, England. Photographed by me. Oosoom
context_page_description: Birmingham Snow Hill is a railway station in Birmingham City Centre, England. It is one of the three main city-centre stations in Birmingham along with Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street.
  Snow Hill was once the main station of the Great Western Railway in Birmingham, and at its height it rivalled New Street station, with competitive services to destinations including London Paddington, Wolverhampton Low Level, Birkenhead Woodside, Wales and South West England. The station has been rebuilt several times since the first station at Snow Hill; a temporary wooden structure, was opened in 1852; it was rebuilt as a permanent station in 1871, and then rebuilt again on a much grander scale during 1906–1912. The electrification of the main line from London to New Street in the 1960s saw New Street favoured over Snow Hill, which saw most of its services withdrawn in the late 1960s. This led to the station's eventual closure in 1972, and demolition five years later. After fifteen years of closure a new Snow Hill station, the present incarnation, was built; it reopened in 1987.
context_section_description: As late as the mid-1960s Snow Hill was still a major station handling millions of passengers annually; in 1964 Snow Hill handled 7.5 million passengers, compared to 10.2 million at New Street. However the electrification of the rival West Coast Main Line into New Street, meant that British Railways decided to concentrate all services into Birmingham into one station, and Snow Hill was seen as being an unnecessary duplication. In 1966 the decision was taken to end main line services through Snow Hill once electrification of the WCML was complete, and divert most of its remaining services through New Street. 
  Long-distance services through Snow Hill ceased in March 1967. Snow Hill tunnel closed to all traffic the following year, with the last train running on 2 March 1968. Local trains towards Leamington Spa and Stratford upon Avon were then terminated at Moor Street. Services to London, the West Country, Stourbridge and Shrewsbury were diverted to New Street, and the branch to Dudley was closed. All that was left was a shuttle service of four trains per day using Class 122 railcars to Langley Green, along with six daily stopping services to Wolverhampton Low Level. With this, as most passenger facilities in the station were withdrawn and virtually the entire site became disused save for one bay platform, Snow Hill then acquired the unfortunate title of "the largest unstaffed railway halt in the country". In March 1972 these last services were withdrawn and the station closed entirely, along with the lines through to Smethwick and Wolverhampton, with the exception of a single line from Smethwick West for Coopers Scrap Metal Works in Handsworth (the works is still in operation to this day).
  Following closure, the derelict station was used for several years as a car park. It enjoyed a brief moment of fame in 1976 when it was the setting for a fight scene in the locally set BBC TV drama series Gangsters. However, despite a public outcry, the Snow Hill building was not preserved. The Colmore Row façade was demolished in 1969, and the rest of the station largely demolished in 1977, when the dangerous state of the building was revealed.  The ironwork of the station roof was badly corroded in several places, and the unstable ground and foundations on which the station had been built were causing it to slide downhill. A few items, including the original gates and booking hall sign, were saved and later used in the Moor Street restoration.
caption: An original entrance in Livery Street
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